THE FUNNIEST PEOPLE IN FAMILIES, VOLUME 2: 250 ANECDOTES

By David Bruce

Dedicated with love to Hartley

Copyright 2010 by Bruce D. Bruce

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The Funniest People in Families, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes

Chapter 1: From Alcohol to Couples

Alcohol

• John Steinbeck always toasted Ava Gardner whenever he began to drink. Here’s the story: While Mr. Steinbeck was in Hollywood working as a scriptwriter, he got a call from Nunnally Johnson’s wife inviting him to a party and asking if he would escort Ava Gardner. Mr. Steinbeck was agreeable, but he later received another call saying that Ms. Gardner was ill and could he escort Ann Southern instead. Once again, he was agreeable, and so he escorted Ms. Southern and her chaperone, Elaine Scott, to the party. Mr. Steinbeck and Ms. Southern dated a few times, but one night Ms. Southern was busy and so she asked him to take care of Elaine. Mr. Steinbeck took Elaine out, discovered he really liked her, and he later married her. That’s why he always began his drinking by saying, “Here’s to Ava Gardner.”

• Patricia Cockburn’s mother once discovered the butler drunk and under the dining room table moments before a dinner party was to begin. She told him, “Stay where you are, Jones, and don’t touch any of the ladies’ ankles.”

Animals

• Late in the life of Rudolf Nureyev, the great ballet dancer owned a dog named Soloria that seemed completely unmanageable no matter what language they used to scold her. One day, Jeanette Etheredge made Mr. Nureyev a lunch and went to him in order to announce that it was ready. However, when they walked into the dining room, they discovered that Soloria had eaten everything. Ms. Etheredge told Mr. Nureyev, “You have to find a language that dog can understand!” Mr. Nureyev then shouted at the dog in German, and he succeeded in frightening it so much that it ran away and hid for two hours. Finally, they had discovered a language that the dog understood. After Mr. Nureyev died, the dog was adopted by Marika Besobrasova, who succeeded in teaching it to obey commands in several languages.

• American ballet master George Balanchine once choreographed a ballet, featuring 50 elephants and 50 young women, for the Ringling Brothers Circus. But first, he called on his friend, composer Igor Stravinsky, to write the music for the ballet. Mr. Stravinsky first asked for whom the ballet would be created. Mr. Balanchine replied, “For some elephants.” Mr. Stravinsky then asked, “How old?” Hearing the answer, “Very young,” Mr. Stravinsky said, “All right. If they are very young elephants, I will do it.” The dedication of his score for the ballet Circus Polka said, “For a young elephant.”

• When Sue Pirtle was growing up in the small town of Stonewall, Oklahoma, residents treated Everett Shaw with a great deal of respect because he was a world champion steer roper. One woman marveled, “Isn’t it nice—a small town of only 300 like ours can produce a world champion!” Mr. Pirtle gave young Sue her first Shetland pony and soon, with lots of help from Mr. Shaw and another friend named Terry Allison, Sue became the town’s second world champion. In 1974 and 1976, Ms. Pirtle earned the Girls’ Rodeo Association title of All-Around Champion Cowgirl.

• Wilson Mizner was an unruly youth, so his family decided to send him to Santa Clara College, which had a reputation for straightening out upper-class delinquents. The “college” even had half-starved, ferocious dogs roaming the grounds at night to keep the youths from slipping away for some fun. Young Wilson got even with the authorities by tying a sirloin steak to the fire bell rope. In their attempts to eat the steak, the dogs kept jumping up and ringing the fire bell all night.

• Poet Nikki Giovanni’s father once had some bushes trimmed, and the trimming destroyed some birds’ nests. When Ms. Giovanni’s young son, Thomas, found some dead baby birds lying on the ground, he became very angry with his grandfather. Ms. Giovanni says that her father had never apologized to anyone in his entire life, but after thinking for a while, he apologized to his grandson.

• Actor Vincent Price’s dog, Joe, was once accused of running in front of a bicycle and causing an accident that broke the cyclist’s collarbone. In the resulting trial, Mr. Price and Joe were forced to appear in court. At one point in the proceedings, an X-ray of the cyclist’s broken collarbone was shown and Joe stood up and begged for food. (By the way, the jury found Joe innocent.)

• When country comedian Jerry Clower was a boy, his family owned a bulldog named Mike. This bulldog looked out for the children of the family, and whenever Jerry’s mother wanted to spank him, first she had to lock up the bulldog, because if she didn’t, as soon as she started to spank Jerry, it would bite her.

• When she was young, track and field star Florence Griffith Joyner owned a pet five-foot-long boa constrictor named Brandy. Whenever Brandy shed her skin, Florence kept it and painted it various colors. One day, Florence took her snake to the mall, but she had to take it home because shoppers were scared of it.

• In Paris, ballerina Suzanne Farrell and her choreographer husband, Paul Mejia, went to a fancy restaurant, where the maitre d’ offered to look after their dog for them. After the meal was over, they discovered that their dog had been fed a meal on a silver platter and the meal was charged to them!

• Dogs can be mischievous pets. When Albert E. Kahn was in the home of Soviet ballerina Galina Ulanova, her dog, which she had named Bolshoi, ate part of the skirt of Tamara Mamedova, who was too busy translating to notice the dog’s meal.

• Ballerina Yvette Chauviré, a favorite of the 1950s Paris Opéra, collected swans. They were tributes to her wonderful performances as the dying swan. Unfortunately, many of the swans were chipped—her cats did not respect her collection.

• Susan Butcher, a four-time winner of the 1,049-mile-long Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska, had a dog named Crackers, so whenever he sired a new litter of puppies, she gave the puppies the names of various kinds of crackers.

Birth

• Senator Chauncey Depew once made fun of President William Taft’s obesity by looking at his waistline, then saying, “I hope, if it is a girl, Mr. Taft will name it for his charming wife.” President Taft overheard him and replied, “If it is a girl, I shall, of course, name it for my lovely helpmate of many years. And if it is a boy, I shall claim the father’s prerogative and name it Junior. But if, as I suspect, it is only a bag of wind, I shall name it Chauncey Depew.”

• An expectant father was waiting by the delivery room, from which screams were coming. The father paced up and down, sweating and wringing his hands as he listened to the screams. Finally, the screams stopped and the physician came to him and said, “Congratulations, you are the father of a healthy baby girl.” “Thank God,” said the father. “She’ll never have to go through what I just went through.”

• Richard Wagner was happy at the birth of his son, Siegfried, and to celebrate, he wrote his Siegfried Idyll. The first person to hear it—other than the musicians who practiced it—was his wife, Cosima. Mr. Wagner brought a small orchestra of 11 men into his house, stationed them beneath a staircase that led to his wife’s bedroom, then conducted them in the music honoring the birth of his son.

• Composer Arnold Schoenberg was visiting fellow composer George Gershwin’s estate and playing tennis one day when he said, “Somehow I feel tired. I can’t understand it.” He thought a moment, then added, “That’s right. I was up at five this morning. My wife gave birth to a boy.”

• Conductor Arturo Toscanini felt that Walter, his son, was not punctual. According to Mr. Toscanini, only once was his son punctual: “I was married June 21; he was born March 21.”

Books

• Aby Warburg could have been an important banker since he was the oldest son of the famous Warburg banking family. However, he was bookish, so he entered into an agreement with Max, the second-oldest son, to allow Max to take over the banking business in return for buying Aby all the books he wanted. Aby profited immensely by the deal, acquiring 80,000 books—many of them rare and costly—during his lifetime. At one point, Aby’s house was filled to bursting with books, so his brothers decided to build him a library next door to house his collection.

• Small children know what they like, and they like to hear their favorite stories read to them over and over. After having Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Two Bad Mice read to her, Carol, Dorothy White’s daughter, said, “I love it, I love it, I love it. Again!”

• Angelica Shirley Carpenter and Jean Shirley are a daughter-and-mother writing team who collaborate on biographies by each writing a biography on the same person, then combining the two books into one volume.

Children and Teenagers

• Al Capp, creator of the comic strip Li’l Abner, was forced to use a wooden leg after falling into the path of a trolley car when he was nine years old. Of course, his limp made children curious. Often, a child would see Mr. Capp limping, then ask him what was wrong with his leg. Mr. Capp handled such situations by telling the truth, and if the child wanted to see his wooden leg, he would show it to him. Usually, that worked best, but once it didn’t work at all. He showed his leg to one boy, but the next day the boy and a friend were waiting for him, and they demanded that he show them his wooden leg. That was a little less fine, but the following day four children were waiting for him, and their leader danced around him, demanding, “Lift up your pants, and show us all your wooden leg.” Mr. Capp managed to stop further escalation by yelling at the children: “You all get the hell out of here—or I’ll kick you with it!”

• As a little girl in Honolulu, Bette Midler went to hula dancing school, where she was not the best student. In fact, her teacher put her in the back row because young Bette could not remember the movements and got by only through watching what the other young dancers were doing. At a recital, her teacher fixed young Bette’s hair, pulling it back so tightly that her eyes were slits she could barely see out of, with the result that she couldn’t watch the other young dancers and imitate them. On stage, young Bette danced, accidentally smacking into the other dancers and knocking them down, thus giving herself the prominent position of front and center. The audience laughed and roared its approval, and young Bette decided to go into show business.

• Wimbledon tennis champion Althea Gibson was not afraid of a fight. When she was a girl, she discovered her uncle lying drunk outside his apartment building. Standing around him was a group of boys, one of whom was going through his pockets. Althea yelled, “That’s my uncle!” She then helped him up the steps to the apartment building and safety. Unfortunately, the leader of the gang threw a screwdriver at her, hitting her hand. After Althea had gotten her uncle to his apartment, she went outside and chased the boy who had thrown the screwdriver at her. Eventually, she caught him, and a long, bloody fight ensued. Years afterward, residents in the neighborhood remembered that fight, which Althea called a draw.

• Christian writer Dale Hanson Bourke and Chase, her very young son, once went crabbing, and Ms. Bourke soon discovered that her son didn’t know that people went crabbing in order to eat the crabs, so she decided that they would simply show the crabs to other people, then release them back into the water. However, she must have said something that made Chase suspicious about crabbing, because he started asking her questions. “Mom, why did God make trees?” “To give us shade and wood.” “Why did God make chickens?” “To give us eggs and meat.” “Why did God make crabs?” She replied, “So we could have an adventure,” and her young son retained his innocence.

• Francis Hodgson Burnett, author of A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, used to spend a lot of time writing, and her two young sons complained that they didn’t see her enough. However, her youngest son, Vivian, suggested a way for her to make things even—write a book that could be read by little boys. Ms. Burnett responded by writing Little Lord Fauntleroy and based the title character on Vivian. (Vivian got his name because his mother had hoped to name a daughter Vivien. When she gave birth to a boy, however, she changed the spelling of the name to that of a male character in a then-popular work of fiction.)

• As a child, soccer superstar Julie Foudy continually practiced her skills. She used to kick the soccer ball against her family’s garage door—which eventually needed to be replaced. She also used to practice kicking the ball in the living room, keeping it low to hit a marble step at the base of the fireplace. Her mother kept an expensive glass vase at the top of the step, but Julie assured her mother that she wouldn’t break the vase. One day, she kicked the soccer ball too high and broke the vase. She says, “I got a good earful. My mom was pretty mad.”

• Comedian Carol Burnett has three children, and it seemed that when they were growing up the maximum number of children who could be good at one time was two. On a trip to a restaurant, it was the youngest daughter’s turn to be naughty. When it was time to order, the youngest daughter, Erin, told the waitress, “Just dessert, please.” Carol said, “No dinner, no dessert.” Erin replied, “Fine. I won’t eat.” Later, Erin wanted to get back on her mother’s good side, so she told her father, “Daddy, I love you. And, Daddy, I also love your wife.”

• As a youth at the college-preparatory Groton School in Massachusetts, Franklin Delano Roosevelt weighed only 100 pounds—too light to be an outstanding athlete. However, his drive to succeed led him to become the best at an athletic event known as the high kick. This was an odd event in which the athlete leaped high in the air and kicked a tin pan that hung from the ceiling of the gymnasium. To be the best at the event, Franklin practiced for hours, eventually kicking as high as 7 feet, 3 1/2 inches—two feet taller than himself.

• When ballet dancer Linda Maybarduk was 15 years old, she got a chance to meet her idol, Rudolf Nureyev, after one of his performances. Unfortunately, despite her wish to act like a sophisticated young lady when she met him, the moment was too much for her, and she started crying. Mr. Nureyev was very encouraging to young Linda, but it was her father who ended up having a 15-minute talk with the dance superstar. In adult life, Ms. Maybarduk danced with her idol in professional performances.

• The family life of a minister can be hectic. In one such family, the father had to travel to preach in a different city, the mother had to drive the older daughter to college in a different state, and only their seven-year-old daughter would be at home, in the company of a babysitter. Contemplating the not-at-all-unusual activity as various family members prepared for their trips, the seven-year-old asked, “Daddy, how did a family like us ever get together in the first place?”

• Fanny Brice was famous as a comedian (one of her most famous characters was Baby Snooks) and singer (one of her most famous songs was “My Man”). Although she had no need to steal when she was a youngster, she often stole—but was generous with her spoils. Fanny sometimes stole money to buy gifts for neighborhood children. Once, Fanny even used her mother’s charge account at a shoe store to buy five pairs of shoes for needy neighborhood children.

• Humorist H. Allen Smith’s wife was not above trying to get a good deal. She and her son once took a train trip. Although her son was seven years old, she was determined to pass him off as five in order to get the lower fare. Unfortunately, when the train conductor came to get their tickets, her son was reading the front page of The New York Times. As instructed, he looked at the train conductor and asked in baby talk, “Is ooo duh tun-dutt-er?”

• Yoki, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s daughter, wanted to go to an amusement park called Funtown, but she was turned away because of her race. At the time, her father was in prison because he was fighting for civil rights. Yoki asked why he was in prison, and her mother replied that he was fighting for the right of people to go wherever they pleased. Yoki said, “Good. Tell him to stay in jail until I can go to Funtown.” Hearing this, Reverend King laughed.

• Because of her job, Beth Joiner, a children’s dance teacher in Georgia, is very aware of the romantic lives of her young pupils. For example, whenever there is a movie Friday afternoon at school, her students tell her with whom they will be going. Once, a long succession of students told her about the boys they were going with, and the last student said, “I’m going with Edwin. I don’t really like him, but he’s the only one left.”

• Sometimes life is like a cartoon. When he was a youngster, Peanuts creator Charles M. Schultz stood in line at a movie theater which had advertised that the first 500 children buying a ticket would get a free Butterfingers candy bar. When he arrived at the ticket booth, he was informed that the theater had run out of candy bars. Mr. Schultz figures that he must have been the 501st child in line.

• When movie director Alfred Hitchcock was six years old, he was naughty, so his parents sent him to the local jail with a note for the police officer in charge. The officer took the note, read it, then locked young Alfred in a cell. After five minutes had passed, the officer released young Alfred and said, “This is what we do to naughty boys.” For the rest of his life, Mr. Hitchcock was terrified of the police.

• A small child attended a tea party at which G.K. Chesterton, author of the Father Brown stories, was present. Her parents were excited that their daughter would meet the great man and told her that she could learn something from him. After the tea party was over, they asked their daughter what she had learned. She said, “He taught me how to throw buns into the air and catch them in my mouth.”

• When she was seven years old, Sammy Fancher Thurman rode a pony that decided to run away. It galloped, lost its footing, and fell and rolled over on top of her. Sammy’s father ran over to her and asked, “Are you all right?” She answered, “I’m OK, but my pony isn’t. He’s got to learn some manners.” She then started training the pony to obey her. Later, she became a star rodeo competitor.

• According to the Bible, we are all children of God. A little girl once asked a new girl in the neighborhood what church she attended. However, the new girl replied, “I don’t go to church. I go to a temple. I’m a Jew.” The first girl asked, “What’s that?” The new girl answered, “You know that there are Protestants, Catholics, and Jews—they’re all just different ways of voting for God.”

• James Roosevelt took his five-year-old son, Franklin Delano, to see President Grover Cleveland in the White House. President Cleveland told young Franklin, “My little man, I am making a strange wish for you. It is that you may never be President of the United States.” The wish did not come true—Franklin grew up to become the 32nd President of the United States.

• Soccer star Michelle Akers almost did not get involved in soccer. When she was eight years old, her mother signed her up to play soccer. However, Michelle wanted to quit right away because her team’s uniforms were pink and yellow, which she considered “girlie” colors. Fortunately for soccer fans everywhere, she kept playing.

• As a child, figure skater Ingo Steuer participated in the athletic system of East Germany, a communistic country known for its strict control of athletes, all of whom were expected to train and diet rigorously. One day, Ingo bought and ate an ice cream cone. The next morning, his coach not only knew that he had eaten an ice cream cone, but its flavor.

• While in a store, Donna McLean’s eight-year-old son wanted a toy but didn’t have the money to buy it. Since Ms. McLean wanted him to learn fiscal responsibility, she said that she wouldn’t give him the extra money. Therefore, her son reached into his mouth and pulled out a baby tooth, then handed it to her. She bought him the toy.

• When she was a child, Hillary Rodham Clinton was victimized by a bully named Suzy. Hillary often ran home crying to her mother, until her mother told her, “There’s no room in this house for cowards. You’re going to have to stand up to her.” The next time Suzy tried to victimize Hillary, Hillary knocked her down.

• A family walked past a Baptist church primarily attended by African-Americans. Inside the church, the worshippers were making “a joyful noise unto the Lord.” The family’s seven-year-old son asked his mother, “Why can’t we go to this church? They have a lot more fun than we do.”

• When he was a six-year-old boy, baseball player Cal Ripken, Jr., attempted to set up a five-jump move in a checkers game against a friend. When he succeeded, he was so excited that he jumped up, hit his head on a concrete windowsill, and opened a gash that required stitches.

• When Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduated from Columbia Law School in 1959, her daughter yelled as Ms. Ginsburg walked across the stage, “That’s my Mommy!” In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Ms. Ginsburg to the United States Supreme Court.

• When home run king Willie Mays was thirteen years old, he climbed a tree to watch a high school baseball game. The game was exciting, and Willie forgot that he was in a tree. He started to applaud a play, fell to the ground, and broke an arm.

• In 1997, when Tara Lipinski became the youngest person ever to win a United States senior figure skating championship, she was just 14 years and 8 months old. In fact, one week before becoming champion, she had lost her one remaining baby tooth.

• Speed skater Bonnie Blair won three Olympic gold medals in the 500-meter race. As a child, she competed in Tiny Tots races, but she was so young that she sometimes got very tired, fell asleep in her mother’s lap, and slept through her races.

• When he was very young, Maury Maverick, Jr., attended a movie theater which showed a March of Time newsreel in which his politician father was featured. Young Maury yelled, “That’s my pop!”—and was almost kicked out of the theater.

• When horror writer Stephen King’s children were growing up, they earned their allowance by recording books—such as novels by John Steinbeck—on tape so their father could listen to them as he drove.

• When poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was a child, the pipes burst in her family’s kitchen during winter, flooding the floor with water that quickly froze—so Edna and her sisters ice skated in the kitchen.

• Ballerina Yvette Chauviré has always loved to dance. When she was a child, she drew the attention of passersby as she danced arabesques on country lanes.

Christmas

• Ben, a young nephew of lesbian humorist Ellen Orleans, wanted a Barbie for Christmas, but not for his birthday, because he didn’t want the other kids to see what he was getting. Ms. Orleans was a little surprised by the request, and she asked her sister-in-law about it. As it happened, the sister-in-law didn’t particularly like her son’s desire in toys, but only because she regards Barbie as a sexist toy. Ms. Orleans ended up buying her nephew a Barbie and two outfits: a white satin dress and a cowboy outfit—the cowboy outfit had actually been created for Barbie’s boyfriend, Ken. She sent it to her nephew in a box marked “Private! For Ben Only!” She also enclosed this note: “Remember, Ben, in real life women do not have permanently arched feet.” Later, she received a note from her sister-in-law about the gift: “Great minds think alike. I bought Ben a Dancin’ Barbie. He’s in heaven.”

• Christmas of 1950 was a lean one for the family of impoverished actor Patrick Macnee, who later became famous as John Steed in the British TV cult classic series The Avengers. He bought a small turkey, but a stray dog grabbed the turkey and ran away. Things looked bleak, but James, Mr. Macnee’s brother, saved the day by disappearing and later returning with a huge turkey. He absolutely refused to say where the turkey had come from, but his clothes were streaked with mud and the recently deceased turkey was still warm.

• Figure skater Lucinda Ruh is known for her spins, as is another athlete born in Switzerland, Denise Biellmann, who invented a spin in which she raises her foot backwards above her head. When Lucinda was nine years old, her father saw Ms. Biellmann do her famous spin and suggested to Lucinda that she learn how to do it. Just before Christmas, Lucinda asked her father to come to the ice rink, where she gave him his Christmas present—she performed the Biellmann spin for him.

Couples

• The original edition of Gilbert Seldes’ book The Seven Lively Arts once figured in a romantic escapade. Several of the people Mr. Seldes wrote about in the book were illustrated by photographs. One of the men so illustrated fell in love with a woman whose parents opposed their marriage. Because the woman was forbidden to have a photograph of the man, she carried around a copy of The Seven Lively Arts instead—until her parents found out why she was carrying the book around. Eventually all ended happily with the marriage of the young woman and the young man: Ellin Mackay and Irving Berlin.

• A gay man at work was surrounded by women who were always trying to fix him up with other women. One day, the man he was currently dating came to the office, and he told the women that the man was his date. They laughed at the idea, so a couple of days later, he showed them a few photographs of him and the man hugging and kissing, so they knew. However, they treated him the same way they had treated him before—except that now they tried to fix him up with other gay men.

• Andrew Tobias and his significant other, Charles Nolan, are opposites. Mr. Tobias writes about finance, and Mr. Nolan designs women’s clothing. Mr. Tobias describes the difference between them by saying that when the federal budget is published, he is excited by the numbers inside (“Look what they’ve done with defense!”), while Mr. Nolan is excited by the binding outside (“Blue and gold! Someone is Washington is finally getting it!”).